Hillary Clinton Is Fighting in New Hampshire

MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE—For wont of a Clinton, a presidency was lost.

Largely overlooked in the drama of the 2000 Florida recount was the fact that if Al Gore had only managed to carry New Hampshire, picking up its four electoral votes, all of the hanging chads in Palm Beach could not have denied him the White House. But the Crown Prince of Sanctimony, wanting to distance himself from his blue dress-plagued Commander in Chief , declined to have Bill Clinton campaign for him in the Granite State. New Hampshire's immensely popular Comeback Kid sat it out, and George Bush won New Hampshire with just over 1 percent of the vote.

This bit of history is not lost on Hillary Clinton, who made her third and final visit of the general election campaign to New Hampshire Sunday night. And Clinton is mindful of her own history as well: after staging her own comeback in the 2008 New Hampshire primary, she crashed and singed last February. But now, in the same space where Donald Trump turned out a respectable crowd nine days earlier, Clinton campaign workers were scrambling to find overflow rooms to accommodate a crowd the fire marshal estimated at 4,755.

"I have to say, you all cleaned my clock in the primary," she ruefully acknowledged to a packed room of enthusiastic supporters gathered at Manchester's Radisson hotel.

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But it's not only about securing her own place in history. If she is elected president, she needs a Democratic Senate to function effectively. Polls claim that popular Gov. Maggie Hassan is unaccountably trailing Senator Kelly Ayotte, who, in the wake of the Trump Pussy Galore tape first embraced the Republican nominee as a role model for children before dancing backwards from the heel. Ayotte nonetheless seems poised to hold onto her seat. Clinton would like to push her off.

The 11th hour rally was not so much about energizing the base as about giving them new talking points. Volunteers grown weary from months of defending and explaining The E-Mails were eager for fresh material that could be delivered in punchy soundbites to voters still perched on the fence. (Any notice of FBI Director James Comey's statement Sunday that the email investigation was settled was conspicuous by its absence throughout the event.)

"While Donald Trump complains and whines, Hillary powers through. Because that's what 'nasty women' do," Senator Jeanne Shaheen said. She is, among her many other distinctions, the only woman in U.S. history to be elected both a governor and a United States senator.

But here, in a room full of women who only minutes before had been swapping tales of how old their grandmothers were before they were allowed the vote, and little girls crayoning "I love Hillary" signs, she claimed it. Shaheen also dismissed Donald Trump's claim that HRC relies on surrogates with star power to draw crowds, noting that Trump is a solo act because "Donald doesn't have friends."

Clinton was introduced by Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father who unexpectedly rose from opening act to showcase performer at last summer's Democratic National Convention. Khan shared with the crowd his encounter with a woman whose 10-year-old son was inexplicably replaying Khan's convention speech every day after school. Under persistent questioning he revealed he was being bullied at school. His mother brought her concerns to his teacher, who decided to play the speech for her entire class.

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"A few days later, his mother asked him, 'Have you been bullied?'" Khan said. "And he said no. Not after they played the speech."

Earlier in the day, the Clinton campaign released a video from former New Hampshire Republican Senator Gordon Humphrey, who said he will vote for Clinton. "Trump's not normal," charged Humphrey, who supported Ohio Governor John Kasich in the primary, and was a Kasich delegate to the Republican Convention. "He's cruel. He's shameless. He's a bully."

"We will have some work to do to bring about healing and reconciliation after this election," a less strident, almost pensive Clinton reflected Sunday evening. "I want to be president of all Americans, those who vote for me and those who don't for me, because we have to heal this country."

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